Day 729

I am, and some of you who know me may find this hard to believe, a traditionalist when it comes to many things, like Christmas. There are twelve days to the Christmas season. It starts on the 25th of December and ends on January 7th. That’s why I turned on the Christmas tree lights this morning. Let’s enjoy the season!

When we lived on Hatteras we learned that there they have a tradition of celebrating Old Christmas, as they call it, which is January 7th. In one of the villages they have Father Christmas or something like that, which is a guy holding a wooden replica of a goat. The fellow is usually rip-roaring drunk and shakes this thing in kids’ faces at some holiday party, and kids are supposed to like this. When I lived in the suburbs of Washington DC they had a similar tradition where the local fire department got one member of their crew inebriated, dressed him ina Santa suit and put him on the back of a hook and ladder truck. They would then go around the neighborhoods with the sirens blaring and Santa on the back of the hook and ladder with those big white fire search lights on him waving at the kids. We’d hear the sounds of the fire trucks for about an hour thinking it must be a five or six alarm fire before we’d realize, “It’s Christmas!” I remember traipsing the kids out to wave at Santa, who was drunk and couldn’t see us because of the bright lights on him. My daughter was crouched down with fingers in her ears terrified. Oh the simple joys of the season.

We now have a new tradition in this country called government shutdown. One Republican congressman wonders why people need to get paid on time. I mean, what’s the big deal? TSA is saying they will need to stop working if they don’t get paid. Imagine you are told to keep working and hopefully when Congress and the president come to their collective senses you should get paid. I wonder how well that goes over with the folks at the payday loan offices that Mic Mulvaney let off the hook and are busy screwing the general population? Pretty soon some of those folks might say, “Hey boss, I’d love to keep working for free but my kids have to eat, so I’m going to go bag groceries. Lemme know when you all figure it out.”

In other shutdown news, no deportations can happen because those courts are closed down. Various government agencies are trying to scrape money from other accounts to keep things going for awhile.

Hey did you hear the one about the person found dead in a National Park? Been dead for several days, no one was around to take care of it. Hysterical, right?

What happens if TSA folks stop showing up to scan stuff at airports? Do we close the airport or let anyone through?

In other news I had a ten dollar off coupon on tickets – “good until Friday January 5th.” The next time January 5th is on a Friday is 2024, so I’ve got what? Five years to use the coupon for a show held in April of this year? Lucky me.

I think it’s time to take a look at the upcoming year and what to expect, or at least keep our eyes on.

First off is the Russia stuff with Trump. I’m not talking the Mueller investigation per se; I’m talking the way that Donald is demonstrating a coziness with Putin and his government that is un…un…believable? unrivaled? Unprecedented? Unexpected? Unthinkable? Unknown in modern times? (or any time?)

The unanswered question from before the election still is – What were those servers in Trump Tower connected to the servers in Alfa-bank transmitting?

Now we have asked, and the Steele Dossier has shown – What does Russia have on Trump? Is it just the girls peeing on the bed? Is it that they own him because of all the money they have given him via the money laundering he has done for them? Is there more?

And most recently – Why is Donald spouting Russian propaganda talking points and where is he getting that from? This makes one wonder if Jared or someone was successful in setting up a back channel to Russia, because the nonsense Donald is saying – like at the cabinet meeting the other day when he went on about why Russia invaded Afghanistan – is pure Russian GRU nonsense, and is only being espoused by them – no one else. So how is this getting wormed into that tiny Trump brain?

It is also becoming more and more evident to more and more people that Trump is not a great businessman, negotiator, or public servant.

This leads me to the outrage the right and Republicans in Congress are having over two things:

1 – The new Congresswoman who shouted out “Impeach the motherfucker!

2 – Ms Cortez

Let’s deal with item #1 first. I am – once again – shocked and dismayed at the Democratic response to this outburst. They, the Dems, say it was a freshman mistake. I say, “No it wasn’t! Haven’t you learned anything?”

My god when that idiot Wilson yelled out “You lie!” during Obama’s State of the Union the Republicans got behind him and raised thousands of dollars. That’s what the Dems should do. Have a GoFundMe or some such thing entitled, “Impeach the MotherFucker!” Stop sending me those namby-pamby “Can you rush me $5?” requests or those “We’ll match you 4x. Please send $26.” Hey, I never hear that you actually match whatever I send. But I’ll give $26 to “Impeach the MotherFucker!” I think Tom Stierer (or whatever his name is) is too blasé in his impeachment messages. “Impeach the MotherFucker!”is something everyone can understand. You don’t need to ’splain nuthin’ after that.

Oh and being offended? Please. Were you offended by “Lock Her Up” or by Ted Nugent calling Hillary a cunt? No. So get over it.

Now on to Ms. Cortez, the Republicans booed her when she voted for Pelosi. She was the only one they booed. WTF? She told them, “You’re jealous because you can’t be me.” She’s right. Then they posted a video of her dancing. Wow. Sacrilege. It was taken during her college days (less than a decade ago, as compared to the Republicans who last were students a half century ago.) She and her friends were recreating the dance scenes from The Breakfast Club. Cool. And, she can dance! She danced again outside her office. I challenge any of the Republicans in Congress to a dance off with her. She’s got the moves! She good looking. And you aren’t, and you can’t. Case not closed, because you-all are dumb enough to keep attacking her.

Speaking of dumb. Paul LePage is gone as Governor of Maine – thank god. He left for Florida which is good because he’ll be under the watchful eye of Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott. Before he left he gave a convicted drug dealer and multiple felon a pardon. yes, he was in the local Maine government, and he was white. LePage didn’t do the same for a black man who was married to a white woman that had a minor drug conviction years ago that he had served time for. He overstayed his visa and was a pillar in his community. He got sent back to Haiti.

The new governor signed a bill giving health care to 70,000 Mainers. Something Mainers voted for overwhelmingly but Mr. LePage didn’t enact.

Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that members of the Trump White House are getting pay raises during the shutdown, and they’ll be getting their checks on time – thank god. That means Stephen Miller will be getting somewhere of another $1,000month to spew his hate and venom.

The Dems have put up an omnibus bill (which I think means “its got a lot of stuff in it”?) on reforms to voting etc. Crazy things like: no gerrymandering – a commission would figure out the districts, paper ballots for all elections – so you could audit the results afterwards, dark money groups would have to disclose their donors, etc.

As the old Dilbert cartoon said, “That’s crazy talk!” Such common sense things that the majority of the people want is of little or no interest to Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate. And who can blame them? I mean, how do they get richer and stay in power if the game was fair?

Speaking of getting rich. How did Bob Corker come into the Senate in debt and leave worth $69 million? Must have been that hard work, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality they keep preaching to the rest of us. Not that crazy talk like “in my day I went to a community college for $50 a semester and paid my way through college as a waitress” that Elizabeth Warren is espousing? Right? Am I right?

“Chains. My baby got me locked up in chains and they aren’t the kind that you can break…”

I don’t know why that old Beatles tune came to mind. (Which Carole King wrote! Who knew?)